And mark the mellowing year, Less to the monarch than the maid, Call back the gorgeous past! The lists are set, the trumpets sound, Bright eyes, sweet judges, throned around; And stately on the glittering ground The old chivalric life! "Forward." The signal word is given; Thus, when, from out a changeful heaven Alike the gladsome anger takes Who is the victor of the day? Thou of the delicate form, and golden hair, As bending low thy stainless crest, Arcadian Sidney, nursling of the muse, Where, bright and broadening to the main, Stout hearts beat high on Tilbury's plain, No breeze above, but on the mast The warrior-woman rode! Hark, thrilling through the armed line "Though mine the woman's form, yet mine And through the deep exulting swee * "I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart of a king, and of a king of England too."-Elizabeth's harangue at Tilbury Camp. Death in the battle and the wind; shore. Joy to the island and the maid! Turn from the gorgeous past: Art thou so desolate? wan shadow, No! [portal, A truth more lofty in thy lowliest hour 'Tis sympathy which makes sublime! gone Mid memory's wrecks, eternal and alone; THE LANGUAGE OF THE EYES. THOSE eyes, those eyes, how full of heaven they are, When the calm twilight leaves the heaven most holy, Tell me, sweet eyes, from what divinest star Did ye drink in your liquid melancholy ? Tell me, belovéd eyes! Was it from yon lone orb, that ever by The quiet moon, like Hope on Patience, hovers, The star to which hath sped so many a sigh, Since lutes in Lesbos hallowed it to lovers? Was that your fount, sweet eyes? Ye sibyl books, in which the truths foretold, Inspire the heart, your dreaming priest, with gladness, Bright alchemists that turn to thoughts of gold Hush! when I ask ye how at length to gain EURIPIDES. LONE, mid the loftier wonders of the past, [age; Thou stand'st-more household to the modern In a less stately mould thy thoughts were cast Than thy twin masters of the Grecian stage. Thou mark'st that change in manners when the frown Of the vast Titans vanish'd from the earth, When a more soft philosophy stole down From the dark heavens to man's familiar hearth. With thee, came love and woman's influence o'er Her sterner lord; and poesy till then A sculpture, warmed to painting; what before Glass'd but the dim-seen gods, grew now to men Clear mirrors, and the passions took their place, Where a serene if solemn awe had made The scene a temple to the elder race: The struggles of humanity became Not those of Titan with a god, nor those Of the great heart with that unbodied name By which our ignorance would explain our woes And justify the heavens, the ruthless Fate; But truer to the human life, thine art [debate, Made thought with thought and will with will And placed the god and Titan in the heart; Thy Phædra, and thy pale Medea were The birth of that more subtle wisdom, which Dawn'd in the world with Socrates, to bear Its last most precious offspring in the rich And genial soul of Shakspeare. And for this Wit blamed the living, dullness taunts the dead. And yet the Pythian did not speak amiss When in thy verse the latent truths she read, And hailed thee wiser than thy tribe. Of thee All genius in our softer times hath been The grateful echo, and thy soul we see Still through our tears-upon the later scene. Doth the Italian, for his frigid thought Steal but a natural pathos, hath the Gaul Something of passion to his phantoms taught, Ope but thy page-and, lo, the source of all! But that which made thee wiser than the schools Was the long sadness of a much-wrong'd life; The sneer of satire, and the gibe of fools, The broken hearth-gods, and the perjured wife. For sorrow is the messenger between The poet and men's bosoms:-Genius can Fill with unsympathizing gods the scene, But grief alone can teach us what is man! A SPENDTHRIFT. You have outrun your fortune; I blame you not, that you would be a beggar; You're troublesome!" Why this, forgive me, Minus one crown, two liards! PATIENCE AND HOPE. UPON a barren steep, I saw an angel watching the wild sea; "Why dost thou watch the wave? The tide ingulfs thee if thou dost delay." I wait until the ocean ebbs away !" Smiling upon the gloomy hell below. "The child God gave me in the long-ago? "Mine all upon the earth- Smiling all terror from the howling wild!" Of Patience nursing Hope-the angel and the child! LOVE AND FAME. It was the May when I was born, Soft moonlight through the casement stream'd, And still, as it were yester-morn, With smiles, the cradle bending o'er, I stretch'd my hand, as if my grasp And found a leaf within my clasp, Be mine, at least, the gentler brother For he whose life deserves the one, THE LAST CRUSADER. LEFT to the Saviour's conquering foes, There, o'er the gently-broken vale, By tombs of saints and heroes flow'd; The dimness of the distant hill; Slowly THE LAST CRUSADER eyed He thought of that sublime array, And vain the hope, and vain the loss, And vain was Richard's lion-soul, And guileless Godfrey's patient mind- "O God!" the last Crusader cried, And Salem is the scoffer's throne! A form flash'd, white-robed, from above; "Thy God is of the shield and spearTo bless the quick and raise the dead, The Saviour-God descended here! "Ah! know'st thou not the very name Of Salem bids thy carnage ceaseA symbol in itself to claim God's people to a house of peace! The valley, Jehoshaphat, through which rolls the torrent of the Kedron, is studded with tombs. + See Tasso, Ger. Lib. cant. iii. st. vi. The signification of the name "Salem," as written by the Hebrews, is the Abode, or People, of Peace. "Ask not the Father to reward The hearts that seek, through blood, the Son; O warrior! never by the sword The Saviour's Holy Land is won!" THE SABBATH. FRESH glides the brook and blows the gale, Six days stern labour shuts the poor A Father's tender mercy gave This holy respite to the breast, The fields that yester-morning knew Fresh glides the brook and blows the gale, So rest,-0 weary heart!-but, lo, The church-spire, glistening up to heaven, To warn thee where thy thoughts should go The day thy God hath given ! Lone through the landscape's solemn rest, They tell thee, in their dreaming school, Alas! since time itself began, That fable hath but fool'd the hour; Yet every day in seven, at least, Six days may rank divide the poor, HENRY TAYLOR. I KNOW nothing of the personal history of Mr. TAYLOR, more than that he is the author of Philip Van Artevelde and Edwin the Fair, two poems, of which the first was published in 1834 and the last in 1842. Philip Van Artevelde is founded on events which occurred in Flanders near the close of the fourteenth century. It consists of two plays, with the Lay of Elena, an interlude, and is about as long as six such pieces as are adapted to the stage. It is a historical romance, in the dramatic and rhythmical form, in which truth is preserved, so far as the principal action is concerned, with the exception of occasional expansions and compressions of time. ties of the mind, but inferior to the few who have appealed to the perceptive faculties. He writes according to his own canons, nearly all of which are as just in respect to prose as to poetry; and, as might be expected, much of his verse has little to distinguish it from prose but its rhythmical form. Mr. TAYLOR Seems to me to excel nearly every contemporary poet as a delineator of character. The persons of his dramas are presented distinctly, and have a perfect consistency and unity. Nor are they all of the same family, as is the case with the creations of some writers, who appear under various dresses and names only to reproduce themselves. The ambitious and fanatical monk, the weak-minded but uncorrupted king, the quiet scholar with his "tissue of illuminous dreams," the clear-sighted and resolute patriot, the unscrupulous demagogue, the brutal soldier, the courtly cavalier, are all drawn with clearness, and without more exaggeration than is necessary to the production of a due impression by any work of art. The ground-work of Edwin the Fair is in the history of the Anglo-Saxons. On his accession Edwin finds his kingdom divided into two parties, one adhering to the monks and the other to the secular clergy. He immediately takes part against the monks, ejecting them from the benefices they had usurped, and prepares to ally himself with his cousin Elgiva, whose family is the chief support of the secular cause. His first effort is to bring about his coronation, notwithstanding the ❘ is communing with a mind of a high order. No educated person can read the works of Mr. TAYLOR without a consciousness that he They are reflective and dignified, and are written in pure and nervous English. The opposition of Dunstan, (the real hero of the poem,) and Odo, the Archbishop of Canterbury. In this he succeeds, and his marriage | dialogue is frequently terse and impressive, with Elgiva is solemnized at the same time. Then commences the earliest important war of the church against the state in England. Dunstan causes the queen to be seized and imprisoned; the marriage is declared void; and each party appeals to arms. In the end Edwin and Elgiva are slain, and DUNSTAN is triumphant. This play, in its chief characteristics, is like its predecessor, though less interesting, and from the absence of "poetical justice" in its catastrophe, less satisfactory. Mr. TAYLOR contends that a poet must be a philosopher; and that no poetry of which sense is not the basis, though it may be excellent in its kind, will long be regarded as poetry of the highest class. He considers BYRON the greatest of the poets who have addressed themselves to the sentient proper and sometimes highly dramatic. Mr. TAYLOR has no sickly sentiment, and scarcely any pathos or passion; but in his writings there are pleasant shows of feeling, fancy, and imagination which remind us that he might have been a poet of a different sort had he been governed by a different theory. His principal faults, so far as style is concerned, are oссаsional coarseness of expression, and inappropriate or disagreeable imagery. He exhibits also a want of that delicacy and refinement of conduct and feeling in some of his characters which would have resulted from a nicer sense of the beautiful and a more loving spirit in himself. Mr. TAYLOR will not perhaps be a popular poet, but with a "fit audience, though few," he will always be a favourite. THE LAY OF ELENA. He ask'd me had I yet forgot The mountains of my native land? I sought an answer, but had not But I can answer when there's none that hears; The land of many hues, Whose charms what praise can tell, Up to their summits clothed in green, They lightly rise, And scale the skies, And groves and gardens still abound For where no shoot Could else take root, The peaks are shelved and terraced round; Earthward appear, in mingled growth, The mulberry and maize,-above The trellis'd vine extends to both The leafy shade they love. Looks out the white-wall'd cottage here, The lowly chapel rises near; Far down the foot must roam to reach The lovely lake and bending beach; Whilst chestnut green and olive gray Checker the steep and winding way. A bark is launch'd on Como's lake, A maiden sits abaft; A little sail is loosed to take The night wind's breath, and waft The castle lights are lost. To brave the wind and sit in the dew At night on the lake, if her mother knew? Her mother sixteen years before The burden of the baby bore; And though brought forth in joy, the day So joyful, she was wont to say, In taking count of after years, Gave birth to fewer hopes than fears. For seldom smiled The serious child, And as she pass'd from childhood, grew And though she loved her father well, And though she loved her mother more, Upon her heart a sorrow fell, And sapp'd it to the core. And in her father's castle, nought She ever found of what she sought, And all her pleasure was to roam Among the mountains far from home, And through thick woods, and wheresoe'er She saddest felt, to sojourn there; And oh! she loved to linger afloat On the lonely lake in the little boat. It was not for the forms, though fair, Though grand they were beyond compare,It was not only for the forms Of hills in sunshine or in storms, Or only unrestrain'd to look On wood and lake, that she forsook By day or night Her home, and far Wander'd by light It was to feel her fancy free, Free in a world without an end, With ears to hear, and eyes to see, And heart to apprehend. It was to leave the earth behind, And rove with liberated mind, As fancy led, or choice, or chance, Through wilder'd regions of romance. And many a castle would she build; And all around the woods were fill'd With knights and squires that rode amain, With ladies saved and giants slain; And as some contest wavered, came, With eye of fire and breath of flame, A dragon that in cave profound Had had his dwelling underground; And he had closed the dubious fight, But that, behold! there came in sight A hippogriff, that wheel'd his flight Far in the sky, then swooping low, Brings to the field a fresher foe: Dismay'd by this diversion, fly The dragon and his dear ally; And now the victor knight unties The prisoner, his unhoped-for prize, And lo! a beauteous maid is she, Whom they, in their unrighteous guise, Had fasten'd naked to a tree! Much dreaming these, yet was she much awake |